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Scientists have detected for the first time gamma rays emanating from a dwarf galaxy. Such a detection may be the signal of dark matter particles annihilating, a long-sought prediction of many dark matter theories.

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A space weather satellite is poised to blast off Sunday for a destination 1 million miles away, but it's the rocket's ocean landing that is stealing the spotlight. The SpaceX company will take a second stab at landing a booster on a platform floating off the Florida coast; last month's experiment ended in a fireball.

A NASA satellite lifted off this weekend with the hope it will transmit data that will help the world do a better job of preparing for floods and droughts. The satellite is on a three-year mission to track the amount of water locked in soil, which may help residents in low-lying regions brace for floods or farmers get ready for drought conditions.

NASA evacuated astronauts from its side of the International Space Station today after an alarm indicated a possible toxic leak. Officials later said a false sensor reading or computer problem likely set off the alarm, rather than an actual leak of ammonia coolant.

Devising a way to one day land astronauts on Mars is a complex problem and NASA scientists think something as simple as a child's toy design may help solve the problem. Safely landing a large spacecraft on the Red planet is just one of many engineering challenges the agency faces as it eyes an ambitious goal of sending humans into deep space later this century.

Americans broadly back tight regulations on commercial drone operators, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll, as concerns about privacy and safety override the potential benefits of the heralded drone revolution.

December 15, 2014 8:32 am |
by The Univ. of Western Australia |
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A project by students from The Univ. of Western Australia and Mars One astronaut candidate Josh Richards has reached the finals of an international competition to land vital experiments on the Red Planet. The Helena Payload project, which aims to generate the first breathable air on Mars, is one of 10 finalists in the Mars One University Competition and is the only successful entry from the southern hemisphere.

Earlier this month, the NTSB released its Aircraft Incident Report on a fire aboard a Japan Airlines Boeing 787, concluding that the fire was probably caused by an internal short circuit within a cell of the lithium-ion battery.

Engineers at Lancaster University are working on powering future giant leaps for mankind. They are major partners of a consortium working on a new project to maximize "energy harvesting" on a space craft of the future.

Bathymetric lidars are used today primarily to map coastal waters. At nearly 600 lbs, the systems are large and heavy, and they require costly, piloted aircraft to carry them. A team at the Georgia Tech Research Institute has designed a new approach that could lead to bathymetric lidars that are much smaller and more efficient than the current full-size systems.

A short circuit likely due to a manufacturing defect in a Boeing 787 airliner battery caused a fire last year that grounded the planes for more than three months, federal accident investigators said Monday. They also faulted the plane's maker and the Federal Aviation Administration for designing and approving a battery design that didn't protect against such a failure.

The first 3-D printer in space has popped out its first creation. The 3-D printer delivered to the International Space Station two months ago made a sample part for itself this week. It churned out a faceplate for the print head casing.

Two NASA and one European spacecraft, including NASA’s MAVEN mission led by the Univ. of Colorado Boulder, have gathered new information about the basic properties of a wayward comet that buzzed by Mars October 19, 2014, directly detecting its effects on the Martian atmosphere. Data from observations revealed that debris from the comet caused an intense meteor shower and added a new layer of ions, or charged particles, to the ionosphere.

The UK's International Charter for Space and Major Disasters (the Charter) is an international agreement between space agencies to provide free satellite images in the immediate aftermath of natural or man-made disasters.

Could astronauts one day be printing rather than building a base on the Moon? In 2013 ESA, working with industrial partners, proved that 3-D printing using lunar material was feasible in principle. Since then, work continues to investigate the technique.

Does synthetic biology hold the key to manned space exploration of the Moon and Mars? Berkeley Lab researchers have used synthetic biology to produce an inexpensive and reliable microbial-based alternative to the world’s most effective anti-malaria drug.

Reddish rock powder from the first hole drilled into a Martian mountain by NASA's Curiosity rover has yielded the mission's first confirmation of a mineral mapped from orbit. Curiosity collected the powder by drilling into a rock outcrop at the base of Mount Sharp in late September. The robotic arm delivered a pinch of the sample to the Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instrument inside the rover.

Federal investigators say they have determined that a space tourism rocket broke apart in flight over California's Mojave Desert after a device to slow the experimental spaceship's descent deployed too soon. While no cause for Friday's crash of SpaceShipTwo has been determined, investigators found the "feathering" system was activated before the craft reached the appropriate speed.

The company behind the dramatic launch explosion of a space station supply mission promises to find the cause of the failure and is warning residents to avoid any potentially hazardous wreckage. Orbital Sciences Corp.'s unmanned Antares rocket blew up just moments after liftoff Tuesday evening from the Virginia coast.

An unmanned commercial supply rocket bound for the International Space Station exploded moments after liftoff Tuesday evening, with debris falling in flames over the launch site in Virginia. No injuries were reported following the first catastrophic launch in NASA's commercial spaceflight effort.

Houston Methodist Research Institute scientists will receive about $1.25 million from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space to develop an implantable, nanochannel device that delivers therapeutic drugs at a rate guided by remote control. The device's effectiveness will be tested aboard the International Space Station and on Earth's surface.

Univ. of Texas at Arlington engineering professors have received an Air Force grant to examine the material surface at the micro- and nano-scale level that will provide clues for predicting fatigue in aircraft parts. The new approach will rely on a scanning whitelight interferometric surface profiler integrated with a compact mechanical tester and an electron backscatter diffraction module to deliver in-situ 3-D surface profiling.